I Did It!!

I wrote a frickin' book! I officially finished NaNoWriMo today and if you go to my profile, my word count will proudly display that I am a "winner" and that my final word count is 51,315 words. And that's where it's staying. I'm done! I thought that I might finish today but the bigger chance was that I would finish on Friday. But I started writing and the ending just took off. This is what I've been waiting for! I actually knew how I wanted to end the book, so I was excited about writing again.

It's a relief to be done, but at the same time, I'm going to miss it. I don't know what I'm going to do now when I'm bored at work :p Overall, I think I'm happy with my story, but it's going to need some serious editing before it's readable to anyone and I'm sure it'll jump to about 75,000 words by the time I finish expanding it. But I'm leaving it alone for now. I don't think I'm touching it again until next year...maybe in January sometime. I've had enough of that story for now!

Biggest surprise of the whole experience was today as I was writing one of the final scenes. I got real emotional with one part and I was not expecting that at all! It's funny how characters that you create become so real and our minds play tricks on us. Here I am making up the story, it's coming from my brain, but at the same time, I'm processing it like I'm reading this touching story that's already written. Very weird.

But anyway, it's done! One of my biggest goals in life has always been to write a novel. It was one of those things that I always thought I'd say but never do. Or I pictured myself writing in a park sometime after I retired, but never now. So it's a great feeling to have accomplished that goal. And thanks everyone for your encouragement along the way and a special thank you to Deslily who stopped by my blog nearly every day after checking my progress to cheer me on.

Now I have to go find some real work to do....

NaNoWriMo Day 2 And Reading Decisions

Day 2 of NaNoWriMo has come and gone for me. I think I'm putting away my typing fingers for the afternoon after reaching 4,071 words today. I'm happy with what I've got done so far, so I'm taking the rest of the night off. 16 pages: a prologue, chapter 1, and chapter 2 complete...all rough drafts of course...VERY rough! I posted the first part of chapter 2 on my nano profile if anyone's interested, though keep in mind that serious revisions will have to be made!! But revision time is in December, right now we are supposed to just aim at getting 50,000 words typed by November 30th. For some reason the site took out all of the indentations from my paragraphs and the site is way too slow for me to be bothered with going back to fix it, so excuse that. I've put a link to my NaNo profile in my sidebar, so you can follow my progress there if you so desire :)

So on to reading decisions. I've got my reading all mapped out for the month of November and probably the beginning of December. I'll be finishing up the Classics challenge, 2nds challenge, and Four-Legged Friends challenge this month and into next. Here's what November looks like:

-Finish Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
-The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
-Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
-The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
-Varjak Paw by S.F. Said
-The Bleeding Dusk by Colleen Gleason (yay! I won an ARC :)
-A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
-Watership Down by Richard Adams
-Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo

After that, I devised a system for all of these challenges, lol. Ok, so I wrote down all of the books that I've signed up for to read in 2008 and I've already commited myself to 50 books next year!! I made myself feel better by reminding myself that I didn't sign up for the 888 challenge which would've been a 64 book commitment in itself. So, how on earth would I ever choose which book to read next with 50 books to choose from with all of these challenges?? I went with the obvious answer and put all of the titles in a hat and that's how I'll choose what I'm reading in 2008...I'll pick each book out one at a time from the hat! That way it adds a little excitement to me when it comes to what I get to read next. Ok, it's getting bad, huh?

Now I'll go look forward to a great weekend of football with LSU playing Alabama and the Saints against Jacksonville! Both games should be great!

And The Days Roll On....

God I hope work picks up...So far I have no referrals...zero, zilch, nada. Today was my second day at the school and I literally spent the entire 7 hour day checking my email over and over and over again. Oh wait, I went to Wendy's for a half an hour for lunch. Now keep in mind, I'm at an alternative school, so all of these kids most certainly have behavioral problems...I'm just not getting the referrals. If they haven't come by tomorrow morning, I'm going to ask my supervisor if I can send a memo out to all the teachers letting them know what I do instead of just waiting for referrals from the social worker. That way, if the teachers notice kids who are struggling, they can make referrals to me themselves. Until I get referrals, I have nothing to do and no clients to see.

One good thing that came out of today was that I started brainstorming for NaNoWriMo and I now have a plot, characters, and even a title!! So I started outlining a little bit and I'm really excited about my story now. Looking forward to starting it. It's a fantasy and the title will be A Sunrise in Nowhere. The story was inspired by a quote I read while I was bored and, well...reading quotes online. Here it is:

"No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed." -Sigmund Freud (From Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, 1905.)

Update: Look who arrived at their new home today!!!